A study presented during the recent APTA Combined Sections Meeting notes that one-on-one education between a hip and knee replacement patient and a physical therapist prior to surgery may be beneficial.
The study, conducted at New York-based Hospital for Special Surgery, suggests also that access to a custom web portal prior to the procedure may also be beneficial.
According to the research presented at the APTA meeting, the patients in the study who participated in the presurgery session with the PT and used the web portal indicated that they were more satisfied with their presurgery education and felt better prepared to leave the hospital after joint replacement, compared to those patients who did not participate in PT session or have access to the website, according to a media release from Hospital for Special Surgery.
In the study, researchers followed 126 patients (median age: 61) who underwent knee or hip replacement for osteoarthritis between February and June 2015.
All of the patients attended a group education class before surgery. They were then separated into two groups: half who attended the one-on-one education session with a physical therapist and had access to a web portal, in addition to the group class; the other half (the control group) attended only the standard group class and received a booklet about what to expect after joint replacement. They received no further education, per the release.
All patients received questionnaires evaluating patient satisfaction and patient-reported functional scores, which measured pain, joint stiffness, and function both before and after surgery.
“Significantly more patients who attended the extra one-on-one counseling session with the physical therapist before surgery indicated that they were better prepared to leave the hospital after surgery and were overall more satisfied with the preoperative education they received,” states the study’s lead investigator Rupali Joshi, PT, PhD, in the release.
“Almost 97 percent of these patients accessed the informational web portal, and all of them said they would recommend it for patients undergoing the same procedure,” he adds.
Almost 70% of patients from the group that did not receive the supplemental educational session or web portal access believed they could have benefited from additional education before surgery.
Patients who received one-on-one counseling also needed fewer physical therapy sessions in the hospital before discharge and met PT discharge criteria sooner. This includes the ability to get out of bed and walk with or without an assistive device and going up and down stairs independently, according to the release.
[Source(s): Hospital for Special Surgery, Newswise]
